...except that almost every table in existence has something that messes up the system. Usually it's an upper limit on the amount you can bet (called a "table limit"), which puts an upper bound on the number of successive losses you can win back.

The wikipedia article[1] covers this relatively well under "An alternative mathematical analysis."

The short of it, though, is that everything at a casino is there to put the odds in the house's favor. They spend enormous amounts of time and money on researching this very problem, and their entire business depends on carefully walking the space between their patrons having a good time and winning a mint.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martingale_(betting_system)

I've thought about this a lot. The problem for me is how much money to bring to the table - you would have to get some kind of credit or show up in Vegas with a lot to even attempt it. Also, most tables have max bets (~$3000 for a $25 table) so you would have to start at a high stakes table just in case.

The Martingale strategy is perhaps the most likely reason that casinos have table limits. The strategy works exceedingly well if 1) you have an unlimited budget (or unlimited credit) and 2) don't have table stakes to worry about.

It's possible, but highly unlikely that you can find a high roller casino that won't enforce minimums, and has very high maximums (which would allow you to start with $1 bets, for example), but even with that, you're likely still limited by budget.